COMPETITION SHORT FILMS
(in alphabetical order)
3,5%
Switzerland, 2022, 3’, col. ANIMATION
Director: Lukas Bieri
SYNOPSIS
In a not-too-distant future, the city of Lucerne (Switzerland) has become uninhabitable due to climate change. Beginning in an abandoned kitchen, the scope of the change is revealed on an ever-increasing scale, until finally the dried-up Lake Lucerne can be seen.
CURUPIRA
Netherlands, 2023, 12’, col. DOCUMENTARIO
Director: Lea Hejn
SYNOPSIS
The Mother of the Forest – Curupira – is the story of an Amazonian goddess told through the voices of the Borari people. She is the all-powerful guardian of all living beings in the forest. And while she is generous and benevolent in her gift… Beware! If you disrespect her home, her punishments are weird and merciless! Her warnings are more relevant than ever in a contemporary reality where the forces of agri-business, logging and mining are decimating the forest faster than we can protect it. Her story reminds us that it is time to listen, respect and rekindle a more balanced relation to nature if we wish to protect our common home.
FATHER CHASE ME NOT
Germany, 2022, 23’, col. FICTION
Director: Sámuel Visky
SYNOPSIS
Uma has exposed her father during a political action at a gala event, steals his prize medal and escapes into the darkness of the city with the help of her accomplice Dani. Over the course of the night, she seeks recognition and belonging among a group of young activists, but is increasingly confronted with her own insecurities and frenzied ecstasy of pain. The next day, Uma realizes that her innermost needs are very different from Dani’s, and she can no longer continue on the path with him they set out on. She has to turn back.
HERIZON
USA, 2023, 7’, col. FICTION
Director: Miguel Gallardo
SYNOPSIS
A woman’s escape to the beach becomes a desperate quest for self-liberation when she’s confronted with an enigmatic force of nature. As the sun sets, the boundaries between reality and metaphor quickly begin to disappear.
OUR FUTURE
France, 2022, 25’, col. FICTION
Director: Thibault Martin
SYNOPSIS
A face-to-face meeting behind closed doors on the theme of Amazon deforestation brings together two heads of state. At the same time, a school director accompanies a student particularly concerned by the climate emergency to an unknown destination.
PARFUM
USA, 2023, 15’, col. FICTION
Director: Dylan Gee
SYNOPSIS
A Los Angeles luxury real estate agent finds herself in crisis after making a strange discovery during a routine showing. Parfum explores the absurd dichotomy between California’s ever-increasing obsession with luxury real estate and lifestyle culture (as depicted in Netflix’s hit reality show “Selling Sunset”) and California’s simultaneous increase in wildfires, mudslides, and other climate disasters.
RETRODREAMING
Germany-Japan, 2022, 18’, col. FICTION
Director: Alisa Berger
SINOSSI
Retrodreaming examines the phenomenon of ghostly schools in the countryside of Japan. Empty schools in deserted villages tell their own story: may it be during the pandemic, after a nuclear catastrophe, or just due to depopulation. A voice from a tape recorder recalls the reality of a secret experiment during a pandemic that resulted in further mysterious events. The film slowly reveals fragmentary glimpses of an entity inhabiting the dreams of the experiment’s test subjects.
SALT WATER TOWN
UK, 2021, 14’, col. FICTION
Director: Dan Thorburn
SYNOPSIS
Liam spends his days drinking with friends and racing his motorbike across the roads of his Welsh coastal town. He helps run a failing caravan park with his father, Glenn, who clings to the belief that prosperity will soon return. When an insurance inspector reveals the land they own is worthless as a result of rising sea levels, Liam must convince his father to abandon his lifelong home. Their conflict over control of the park leads to desperate measures.
SAVING SOME RANDOM INSIGNIFICANT STORIES
Director: Anna Vasof
SYNOPSIS
“Saving Some Random Insignificant Stories is a goodbye film to my parents’ house. One night in December 2021, after an unusually extreme weather event, my parents’ house flooded, and they had to be rescued by a boat. They lost almost everything that night, including their dog and their cat. Two days after the flood, when the water level went down and I could finally enter the house, I tried to extract as many objects as possible, and for the rest, I made this film.” Anna Vasof
STAINED SKIN
Germany, 2021, 9’, col. FICTION
Directors: Adam Graf, Mandy Peterat
SYNOPSIS
In the underground halls of a dystopian textile factory, the rhythm of machines dictates the lives of Alba and Samy. Every day, they pull endless lengths of fabric through the deep blue of dye, whose imprint has already become permanent on their skin. During their shift, Alba tells the story of the girl who lived at the bottom of the ocean. Samy dives further and further into the narrative of the character Nanami, who wants to free herself from enslavement by the rulers of the ocean.
TAHLEQUAH THE WHALE A DANCE OF GRIEF
Lithuania, 2023, 15’, col. ANIMAZIONE
Director: Daniel Kreizberg
SYNOPSIS
In the aftermath of her newborn baby’s sudden death, orca mother Tahlequah carries her daughter’s body across the Salish Sea in the incredible true story that captivated the world.
TALES OF JAN MAYEN
UK, 2023, 31’, col. DOCUMENTARY
Director: Hugo Pettit
SYNOPSIS
A team sails to the remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen to recreate the 1921 British expedition to summit the world’s northernmost volcano, Mount Beerenberg. They conduct marine science, alongside discovering how climate change is affecting the volcano’s glaciers today.
THE CLUMP
Italy, 2023, 8’, col. FICTION
Director: Gino martella
SYNOPSIS
A man walks through the Salento countryside. He holds a glass jar in his hand. Empty. Fields of centuries-old olive trees exterminated by the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium parade past. The man walks towards his grandfather’s olive grove. His destiny is to return to the places of his adolescence. Strange plant shapes appear in the countryside. The man with the jar crosses the valley. He feels he is being watched. Fauns threaten him or perhaps protect him. The man must perform his ritual, a clump of earth – la paddotta – awaits him on the bank of a stream. In an eternal present, everything begins again and is fulfilled in every single moment.
THE SPRAYER
Iran, 2022, 9’, col. ANIMATION
Director: Farnoosh Abedi
SYNOPSIS
In the land occupied with the Sprayers army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants either in public or private. So many of the people and soldiers do not even know how does a plant grow or look like, until one day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust and his curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary, something big, something revolutionary.
WELL WISHES MY LOVE, YOUR LOVE
Sweden-Malaysia, 2022, 9’, col. ANIMATION
Director: Farnoosh Abedi
SYNOPSIS
Newly orphaned and freshly wounded from a loss, a boy lends his companion a prosthetic arm for the day. The companion would then expose the prosthetic limb to different textures and materials, documenting the process. As the moon inches closer and closer towards the sun, the companion sees something unusual reflected on the water’s surface… What will become of the limb, and of the video recordings? A slow and meditative film about everyday gestures of love, communicated through our universal understanding of body language. From the movement of sinking sand particles in a pulsing current – down to the swaying of each blade of grass rolling into one another in a gush of wind, every element is individually animated to draw attention to the animism behind the everyday and its position in our daily lives, no matter how seemingly insignificant they might appear to be. Come, be present with the boy, and join him on his journey where you’ll get to discover the immanence of trees… birds… bee… laundry… and find out what the boy does with all his GoPro footage.
OUT OF COMPETITION SHORT FILMS
(in alphabetical order)
GUARDIANI DEL LAGO
Italy, 2023, 15’, col. DOCUMENTARY
Director: Alice Gagliardi
SYNOPSIS
“The lake has given me everything.” There is love in the words and gestures of Pietro and Gianfranco, two old fishermen who are committed to repopulating the waters of Lake Varese, Italy, with native fish species. Passion and competence are the values that they hope to pass on to future generations to help preserve the balance and biodiversity of a place that has been their home for a lifetime, and that is now at risk of collapse.
NOTHING HOLIER THAN A DOLPHIN
Greece, 2022, 17’, col. FICTION
Director: Isabella Margara
SYNOPSIS
In a small Mediterranean village, an ancient myth unexpectedly comes to life. Two fishermen find a dolphin accidentally caught in their nets. The dolphin, on its turn, finds a fisherman drowning in the water and tries to save him.
OVERHEATED
UK, 2022, 38’, col. DOCUMENTARY
Director: Yassa Khan
SYNOPSIS
Overheated is centred around one overwhelming question, asked by Billie Eilish herself: are we doing enough? The answer is one which plays on all of our minds, but the film instills us with a sense of hope that inspires change. Because if we can focus on the small, incremental steps that are within our power, together we can change the course of our planet’s future, which is of course the future of the human race.
SEMBRANDO EL FUTURO
Spain, 2021, 30’, col. DOCUMENTARY
Director: Alberto Utrera
SYNOPSIS
Sembrando el futuro, which stars the Roca brothers (El Celler de Can Roca), begins with the alarming extinction of crop diversity: a premise that the brothers discover in their local and personal surroundings, and that they continue to explore in other parts of the world. As they delve into the biodiversity conservation solutions offered by a series of different international experts, the protagonists begin a journey aimed at safeguarding their culinary heritage and family legacy.
SUPER JESUS
Italy, 2022, 20’, col. FICTION
Director: Vito Palumbo
SYNOPSIS
Carlo is nine years old, lives in Taranto, Italy, and is seriously ill. He has an undying love for Jesus, his favorite superhero. Ugo has been laid off from the large steel mill where he works. An atheist and communist, but out of desperation, he decides to participate in a casting call for a Jesus. Thus, Ugo, to make Carlo happy, will become the greatest superhero of all time: Super Jesus.
